Title: Clinical utility of urinary sediment examination in the disease diagnosis and management

Abstract: A non-invasive method allows for painless patient diagnosis and monitoring with a low risk of infection and with the immediate clinical response to the collected data. Current medical health examinations by non-invasive procedure for urinary tract-related diseases are limited in clinics which is worth of further explorations. The similar methods are image and pathological examinations which are less convenient. Biomarkers have been used in precision medicine because it benefits the classification of disease risk, prognosis or therapeutic response. Histological specimens reveal molecular information directly, and liquid biopsy provides noninvasive and inexpensive detection relatively to tissue biopsy. Therefore, the primary goal is to develop a non-invasive biomarker assay using urine as the material. Since the concentration of protein in urine is not high, mass-spectrometry (MS) and immune-assay based technologies with good sensitivity and high specificity are commonly choices in biomarker development. Our laboratory has used proteomic and metabolomic platforms to discover, verified and filed several biomarkers patents for the management of benign and malignant urological diseases.

To accomplish the goal of precision medicine, this study aims to improve the speed in urinary biomarker assay which plan to explore the biomarker detection in urinary cell debris, and eventually to improve the stability and sensitivity of the biomarker assay. We hope the simple and fast non-invasive health examinations can be used to early detection of urological disease or/and monitoring of high-risk patients in the future.

The students participating in this study will have changes to learn biological mass spectrometry, analytical chemistry, proteomics, metabolomics, precision medicine, and biostatistics.

Scholarships: a monthly scholarship of NT$ 12,000~15,000.

Costs, accommodation arrangements :Travel, accommodation, living expenses will be paid by the international applicants themselves. The accommodation fee is 520 NT dollars per week (Sunday to Saturday, charged per week for stays less than one week). Additionally, bedding can be rented for an extra fee of 350 NT dollars (one-time only)

Schedule or duration : a minimum duration of 2 month, and up to three months

Participation requirements: undergraduate and graduate students or degree with scientific background in Chemistry and Biology are preferred.

Language: English/Mandarin.